1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document managing system, a document managing method, and a program for implementing the method, and more particularly to a document managing system and a document managing method, which are capable of separately setting the rights of access to files and folders, and parent folders and child folders, and a program for implementing the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a document managing system which is capable of separately setting the rights of access to files and folders has been proposed (for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-73419).
In the case where a system in which the rights of access to files and folders can be set is constructed, for example, in a document managing system (FIG. 7) in which users U110 and U111, folders F100 and F101, and files F102 and F103 are registered and the rights of access to the folders and files are separately set, the rights of access can be set such that the right of access to the folder F101 is given to the user U110, and the right of access to the file F103 in the folder F101 is given to the user U111.
In the document managing system, however, if the right of access is improperly set, there can be the case that any user cannot access a certain file or folder.
For example, in the case where the rights of access are given to the users U110 and U111 as shown in FIG. 7, the user U110 can access the folder F101, but cannot access the file F103 in the folder F101. The user U111 is given the right of can access to the file F103, but cannot access the folder F101 containing the file F103, and therefore actually cannot access the file F103.
Also, as shown in FIG. 8, in the case where there are users who have the right of access to an object file and users who have the right of access to a folder to which the object file belongs, users who have the right of access to both the object file and the folder to which the object file belongs (users who belong to an intersection hatched in FIG. 8) can actually access the file. Therefore, if the intersection is empty, no user can access the file.
Further, as shown in FIG. 9, in the case where there are users who have the right of access to an object folder and users who have the right of access to a parent folder of the object folder, users who have the right of access to both the object folder and the parent folder of the object folder (users who belong to an intersection hatched in FIG. 9) can actually access the folder. Therefore, if the intersection is empty, no user can access the folder.
Once a file or a folder has been made inaccessible by anyone as shown in FIGS. 7 to 9, the user cannot access the file or the folder any more, or a privileged user like an administrator manually has to check and correct the right of access.
Further, in a document managing system in which the presence of folders and files itself is not presented for users who have no access right, there is the problem that the presence of such files which cannot be accessed by any one itself is hidden.